All-Area basketball players, coaches saluted on radio show

Want to thank everyone who showed up and made Saturday morning's "Calling All Sports" All-Area basketball radio show at Stooges, a big success. Most of all I want to thank Stellar Construction, Frantz Trophies, Stooges and AM 1470 radio for putting it all together.

The day started off so well and continued well for Liberty at Villanova. And it was three-tenths of a second away from ending well for the Central girls as well at Reading. What a heartbreaker. Came back from Villanova to watch the replay and still couldn't believe the ending even after colleague Steve Miller told me all about it.

What a shame for a great bunch of girls, several of whom were on the show earlier in the day. As I said in a previous post, I was so impressed that Coach Kopp and the girls showed up on such an important gameday. That's total class. After that gesture, I was really, really disappointed to hear that final score.

Here is the Stellar Construction/Frantz Trophies girls basketball all-area team (and remember this is not the Morning Call's All-Area team, although most certainly there will be considerable duplication).

Team of the Year: Central Catholic.

Player of the Year: Colleen Nosovitch, CCHS

Coach of the Year: Jeff Jacksits, Northampton.

All-Area team:

Taylor Maldonado, CCHS

Kara Bonenberger, Northampton

(Kara, left, and Alyssa Bonenberger, right, were keys to Northampton's District 11 title).

Alyssa Bonenberger, Northampton

Marisa Repasch, Liberty

Erika Livermore, Nazareth

Sondrine Glovas, Wilson

Aimee Oertner, Northern Lehigh

Cat Noack, Liberty

Andrea Veres, Becahi

Caitlin Hrebik, Salisbury.

(Erika Livermore, left, and Caitlin Hrebik, right).

(Central Catholic was represented ---from left to right -- by Emily Johnson, Player of Year Colleen Nosovitch, Taylor Maldonado and Lizzie Straccia).

Because Liberty's game was much earlier in the day, we couldn't get the Hurricanes to Stooges. But Chad Landis did call in for a brief interview. The boys all-area team winners:

Team of the Year: Liberty

Player of the Year: Darrun Hilliard, Liberty.

Coach of the Year: Joe Arndt, Nazareth.

The All Area Team:

Chuck Dibilio, Nazareth

Al Blount, Becahi

Jalen Cannon, Allen

Joey Giangiobbe, Notre Dame

Bobby Beldo, Whitehall

Jarrod West, Liberty

Brian Stevko, Northampton

Josh Case, Catasauqua (in photo at right)

Shane McNeely, Central Catholic

Paul Pammer, Parkland

Again, there will be a few differences once The Morning Call's All-Area boys team is released because the newspaper's circulation area encompasses a larger area than the radio show.

Congrats to all of the winners.

And special thanks to Tony Stellar, who made it all possible.

Tony recently lost his wife Debbie after a courageous four-year fight against ovarian cancer and the show was dedicated in her honor.

When it comes to first-class tournaments and events to showcase kids, no one is better than Tony Stellar (with me and Roger Pence below). He always credits me along with Mike Zambelli and Glen Klein for having the Stellar Construction event become one of the biggest and best events of its kind in the country, and the Z-Man and Kleiny do deserve their share of credit. But the man who got it all started is Tony. We thank him again for his support of high school basketball.